


Coffee Compromise

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Coffee Shops, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Love/Hate, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 07:12:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15528954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: She was confident that the Kingsglaive was her real calling, and she had no doubt that she would be recruited for it – so long as she didn’t torch her current place of employment before the papers were processed. And so long as she didn’t bury her boss’s nephew in the bags of coffee beans before then, either.





	Coffee Compromise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



“Oh, what the hell?”

Crowe was (painfully, _enviously_ ) aware that the boss’s nephew received a fair few undeserved perks for a job that was, to him, totally dependent on his shared DNA and only ever demanded he show up to smile behind the counter.

She’d assumed one of those perks was a bed of his own to sleep in.

Crowe huffed out a breath as hot as a smoking oven, confounded and caring less by the second about the sorry sack of snoring shit staining Booth 2. On any other given day, for any other given guy, she wouldn’t have cared. The boss might’ve, sure, but she wasn’t the one opening the damn place to transients camping out beneath the awnings. What she didn’t know wouldn’t rob her, and Crowe knew first-hand what it was like not to have a place to sleep at night.

But this was Precious Baby Nephew Pelna Khara, sitting cozy with curating coffees for minimum wage by day while undergoing the assessment for Kingsglaive recruitment by night. It was shit money for a shit job that a person would either need to be desperate or crazy to take. Crowe was both, Khara was one, and it wasn’t the answer behind door number “desperate.”

She resented him for that.

Which was why there was no mercy blunting the toe of her boot when she gave the booth a sharp kick, startling its occupant into a spray of flailing limbs and snuffled curses.

“If you were coming in early, you could have at least swept the place,” Crowe said, hands set imperiously on her hips.

Pelna blinked up at her with all the alarm of a catoblepas being poked by a mosquito on a hot summer’s day. Crowe wrinkled her nose, a twitch in the back of her head arguing with her not to judge the slovenly state of his face and his clothes and his everything. She’d scraped Nyx and Libertus off the floor of the old bar enough times not to be a prick about it – and they’d scraped her off that same floor enough times to make a hypocrite out of her if she was.

“Come on,” she sighed, falling into the old role of janitorial consult to better temper her irritation. “Opening’s in an hour.”

He wasn’t in the death throes of some wild bender, she didn’t think. He smelled like a man that spent the night plastered to a vinyl seat that had been pressed and pummeled by many asses before him, but not like a man that had been drinking before he spent the night plastered to a vinyl seat that had been pressed and pummeled by many asses before him.

“Morning to you, too,” Pelna mumbled without malice, grunting to dislodge the sleep in his voice. He sat himself up in the booth as if he was waking from a vat of molasses, jamming the heels of his palms against his sleep-bruised eyes.

Crowe returned the pleasantry with a graceless snort and marched to work while Pelna roused himself. She’d been working at the café for a few months now, pretending like she could fit the mold of Lucian propriety and make a living from it. But she wasn’t kind enough for coffee orders, forcing herself to smile through tirades of customer entitlement to the point where her palms bled from how deeply her nails cut into the skin.

Kingsglaive was more her speed, something she could pour her chaos into and curse out her colleagues as much as she damn well pleased without much reprimand. Her superior would give her praise instead of punishment for bringing her fight to the business. She was confident that the Kingsglaive was her real calling, and she had no doubt that she would be recruited for it – so long as she didn’t torch her current place of employment before the papers were processed.

And so long as she didn’t bury her boss’s nephew in the bags of coffee beans before then, either.

“Is this a first for you?” she asked, not because she necessarily cared, but because she hated awkward silences. “Breaking into your aunt’s place to crash on the café business’ most uncomfortable benches?”

He sent her a look of exhausted reprimand, having been the victim of her grievances since they’d been put on the same shift. He never repeated a single one of them to his aunt, nor condemned Crowe for having them. That kind of annoyed her about him, too. Half the time she did it just to see if she could get a rise out of him. But whereas Crowe was a firaga spell, Pelna was a barrier over a Nif stronghold in the frozen mountains of Gralea. Maybe if she got a little caffeine in him, she could loosen his gears.

“Sorry for surprising you,” Pelna yawned, stretching and shuffling over to the counter as Crowe plugged in the coffee pot. “Didn’t plan on sleeping through the alarm.”

Crowe rolled her eyes. _Sure, let’s pretend that the snooze button is the real adamantoise in this room._ “Didn’t plan on serving a customer before opening hours, and yet…” She made a vague gesture between him and the coffee pot snuffling awake.

“If I pay for it, will it buy your silence?”

“You’re lucky I’m not Kingsglaive yet,” Crowe mumbled. “Otherwise I’d tell you my bribe-by date had expired.”

“Good thing I squeezed in my chance,” he chuckled, wearily. “I can’t imagine it being much longer before you’re recruited.”

“You don’t have to charm me to bribe me, Khara. I’m already taking your money whether you pay or not.”

He laughed, another annoying little habit. The guy couldn’t seem to tell when he was being insulted or threatened or cursed or vowed to be her frenemy for the rest of eternity. He thought every little word she said was so damn funny. _Gods,_ she just wanted to punch him some days. See how funny physical violence was to his future black eye. Knock out a few of his perfect teeth for extra oomph.

“Just speaking the truth, Altius,” he replied, reaching behind the counter for the sugar packets yet to be set out on the tables. “Promise you won’t forget about us peons when you’re off protecting the world from devastation.”

“Gonna be hard to forget your ugly mug when it’ll still be in my way every day.”

She poured two cups of coffee and slid Pelna his to mutilate with sugar and cream to his heart’s over-sweetened desire. She took hers black, scalding off the skin of her tongue while he poured waterfalls of tiny white crystals into his cup. He went quiet all of a sudden, a subdued smile put onto his face in the default position, not because he meant it.

“Not expecting an email?” she asked.

“Nah.” He waved a hand through the steam curling off the top of his cup. “I’ll be dead the first mission and I’m pretty sure the captain knows it.”

Crowe shrugged. “Is pouring coffee really so bad then?”

“Isn’t it?”

He crooked a brow at her, black receding into fluffy, curly black like a wooly caterpillar into soil. She challenged the look, narrowing a glare at his unaffected face. When it didn’t yield the retreat she was hoping for, she hooked her chin towards the booth he’d been sleeping in.

“That what you’re losing sleep over?”

Pelna’s face contorted into a grimace, eyes cast down to the speckled granite counter as he stirred in his sugar. It was a while before he answered her, Crowe’s heel tapping out a silent, impatient rhythm beneath the counter as she waited.

“Been in Insomnia for a while now,” Pelna murmured. “Long enough for it to feel like home, or well… it’s _supposed_ to.” He shook his head, then cast his gaze around the little café: gray-washed walls like beached driftwood, retro tables of blue-and-white vinyl, nautical-themed bronze lighting fixtures, and casks of glass-guarded pastries sweetening the bitter taste the coffee left in the air. “This… this feels more like home.”

Crowe burnt the roof of her mouth on another impatient gulp of coffee, debating with herself whether she should pity the guy or tell him to suck it up and sleep in his apartment like the rest of the civilized people of Insomnia. But that would make her a hypocrite, too. Many a sleepless night saw her crashing between the couches of her two best friends, just to ward off the emptiness of her own apartment.

“Anyway,” Pelna chuckled, sipping tentatively at his over-sugared coffee. But he didn’t have anything else to add to segue the conversation into a different topic.

“Hoping a bed at the barracks will be cozier?” Crowe asked.

“Hoping we’ll be bunk buddies, Altius?”

She snorted and rolled her eyes, affecting disgust for even speaking the possibility into being. She hoped this morning’s discovery of him wasn’t some Astral-sent omen of pre-dawn wake-up calls spent dumping him from the cot of their cadet quarters.

“I’m hoping you’ll clean up after yourself, and not expect me to be your maid, here or as future roomies.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He knocked off a salute, sleepy smile still softening his features. “And I’ll do you one better, if you’ll let me. Can I treat you to coffee when you get your acceptance letter? To make up for this one, too?” He lifted the consolation coffee, meekly.

Crowe paused, pressing her palms to the counter-top while she considered his offer. He wasn’t a bad person, of course she knew that. He just caught her in a bad position, working a bad job that made _her_ a bad person – though she had a feeling he wasn’t his best here, either. Email or not, she was stuck with him for the foreseeable future, Kingsglaive or coffee peddler – she had no doubt he’d be recruited, she’d seen him fight, and he was a fair bit more impressive with a blade in his hands than a coffee grinder.

She puffed out a sigh. At least she’d get a free meal out of it.

“Make it lunch and I’ll let you ask me to that. After pouring coffee all day, every day, it’s the last thing I want when I’m celebrating my success.”

“Lunch break date it is.”

She groaned and swept her coffee off the counter to go tidy up the kitchen before opening. Whether she liked him or not, Pelna would be her partner in many things from that day onward. And as sweet as she would come to learn he really was, he didn’t stop pissing her off most days, either.

She resented him a little bit less for that.

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday, mah rarepair pal! I hope you've enjoyed this crowelna origin story that no one ever asked for, but I am here to present to the world anyway~


End file.
